In her Pushcart Prize–nominated poem “Signatures,” the poet lists in a dense paragraph the “artifacts” collected on the Little Bighorn battlefield: “cartridge case arrowhead rib bullet obliquely severed cervical vertebra . . .” Included in the list is a “general-service button (blue wool attached),” and in the next poem she tells the human story behind this “artifact”: a sister carefully sewing the button as her brother is anxious to leave for war. Patterson artfully shows that each object gathered after war has an emotionally charged story attached.

—Brian Daldorph, Editor Coal City Review, author of Jail Time

The poet asks: “Why write about a past / buried in books, dirt, controversy?” Veronica Patterson's new collection centers on the story and its place in history—bespeaking of demons and dangers, and the aftermath. Maneuvers: Battle of the Little Bighorn Poems is a brilliant gem of a book.

The rapid-fire rhythms in Veronica Patterson’s& it had rained, charged with the lyricism of poetry and the ruminative strides of prose paragraphs, enlarge the reader's awareness of the world: bird, wings, rain, water.

Praise for Veronica Patterson’s Previous Work:

“What I like about [Patterson's work] is how naturally it makes its moves. As the story opens, the dreaming speaker is drawn into an alley strewn with flowers and fruit, which . . . creates a sense of the forthcoming abundance . . . From this beginning, the poet journeys outward to her mother as a thousand-faced cup, to her father as a red-haired boy, to the samovar of a great-aunt, who 'died of having lived. I can only congratulate the poet on a fine, heartfelt, delicate work.” —Lola Haskins

From the introduction by poet Lola Haskins, who selected the book for the prize:

“What I like about Thresh & Hold is how naturally it makes its moves. As the story opens, the dreaming speaker is drawn into an alley strewn with flowers and fruit, which . . . creates a sense of the forthcoming abundance . . .”

“From this beginning, the poet journeys outward to her mother as a thousand-faced cup, to her father as a red-haired boy, to the samovar of a great-aunt, who ‘died of having lived.’”

“I can only congratulate the poet on a fine, heartfelt, delicate work.”

From Thresh & Hold. . .

Threshold

The night you lay dying,
there was a space around the house
into which nothing untoward could come,
in which nothing but your dying could take place.
It was a hole in the field,
like the hush into which a child is born. As if
at all times, or whenever necessary,
shafts of quiet pierce the world – we don’t know
the ways of the soul.

But we know how artists make a map
of somewhere foreign, then telescope one spot forward,
to show details. You lay on the bed,
breathing hard. A lens of lamplight. Your husband
on one side of you, I on the other. We told small, round stories,
beads on a string we passed over you. As if
that were our job, while yours was counting
out your breaths to the last.

When I left, I took the waiting
with me. But it wasn’t waiting; there was no time in it.
I woke before dawn, with these words,
“Why do you seek the dead among the living?” The call came,
like news of someone arrived safely in another country.
I am always surprised that the word threshold
hinges on just one h. Each time, I write one for thresh
and one for hold.

Among Patterson's
collections of poetry is the award-winning Swan, What Shores?